Sports
High School Sports

A trio of Panthers try to keep Holy Trinity's Ashley MacCrimmon from going in for a scoring chance, in SD&G girls' high school hockey at the Benson Centre on Thursday, February 8, 2018, in Cornwall, Ont. The Panthers improved to 6-0 with a 3-2 win.

Related Stories

The St. Joseph’s Panthers may have been thinking 6 and uh-oh late in an SD&G high school girls hockey game on Thursday morning at the Benson Centre.

They’d stay perfect in regular season play, but it got a little bit dicey against their cross-town rivals, the Holy Trinity Falcons.

“They (the Falcons) had a really good chance right at the end (to tie the score),” said Panthers head coach Keith Dickson after his team eked out a 3-2 win to move to 6-0 for the campaign.

“It’s a pretty close league. . . there are four teams tied for second place (with seven points apiece).”

The Falcons are a part of that logjam, along with La Citadelle, North Dundas and Tagwi.

It’ll all get figured out next Thursday at the final regular season tournament, at the Long Sault Arena.

About the only sure thing is that the Panthers, with 12 points, are guaranteed to finish first.

But there are no guarantees beyond that, for an injury-depleted squad that’ll be one of four teams moving on to semifinal playoff action in a couple of weeks.

“We’re hoping to get some of our players back (in time for the completion of the season), a couple of top-six forwards,” Dickson said.

If it’s a small roster, it’ll be problematic. Dickson, who for years has convened the boys’ high school league and this year is running the girls’ division, has made a change for playoff games. For the first time, the girls’ games will be 90 minutes in duration, the same playing time as has always been the case in the boys’ division.

“You need a deeper team to play the hour-and-a-half game,” Dickson said.

Thursday’s game, for scheduling reasons, was a single game in Cornwall, one hour in duration, and it turned into a thriller, the Panthers at one point in the first period falling behind 2-1.

But they’d rally to a tie on an Andrea Uhr marker before the frame was over.

And with 16:37 left in the final period, Kate Villeneuve would net the go-ahead marker, a quick wrist shot from the top of the circle that beat Holy Trinity goalie Jazmin Riel.

The Falcons killed off a late penalty and had a couple of solid chances very late in the game.

“A 3-2 game is a bounce here, a bounce there,” Falcons head coach Bruce Ciccarelli said. “We had our chances. It was a good, solid game – it could have gone either way.”

Villeneuve had a three-point morning for the Panthers, including an assist, and Hanna Cameron got the goaltending win.